Those are really nice pictures. Makes me want to start to collect Schalenblende. When we get into writing the quartz articles, I hope some agate nuts will get involved and upload some outrageous agates for us. Ill have to post a squad of soldiers to keep the zealots here on mindat from giving them tar and feathers though I think. Although strangely I have not heard any gripes about this article that is devoted mostly to cut and polished items.

Yep, nice isn't it! Schalenblende is a favourite of quite a few seasoned collectors and mineralogists alike. I'm waiting now for pics of the specimens from f.i. Canada, UK, Russia, China USA (Mississippi Valley?) etc......although not named Schalenblende over there (as such..) there must be specimens around! So, to all out there: post you pics (please...)

I updated the article with some very nice photos by Roger Lang and by Paul de Bondt (very nice Schmallgraf "knitted Galena" with Schalenblende pieces)Also a very nice article on Diepenlinchen mine by Roger Lang is now incorporated.Is there anyone who would like to write some lines about the specimens from other localities, and geological, mineralogical and historical info?Thanks in advance!

With the stated definition (a mixture of Sphalerite and Wurtzite) you have in reality started describing ROCKS and not minerals. I am not sure if this is a wise decission. Maybe varieties should be given sub-section under their respective minerals ( i.e. for the Beryl varieties). I would gather "Schalenblende" then would be a variety of Sphalerite ( that might also contain Wurzite ). As for the pictured variety of colloidal Sphalerite from Broken Hill, they were called "Brunckite" in Australia and this should be mentioned.Knut

Knut,You have touched on a subject about which we have yet to make any standard rules. I am not sure that mindat needs to be bound by strict IMA rules about how to list minerals, but if we do list them in other ways I don't have any problem with that as long as it is made clear in the articles that a particular variety or substance is really thus and such in strict IMA terms. On one hand we would like to conform to IMA standards, but on the other hand, the web site is almost certainly used more by the general public than by mineral collectors and mineralogists and that means that we need to take their needs into consideration as well. How should we list amethyst in best minerals. Should there be a separate article only for amethyst? How about Japan law quart twins? agate? Right now I will welcome anyone who wants to do a comprehensive article about anything even if they don't call it by an IMA correct name as long as they explain where it stands with the IMA. I would love someone to do a real nice article about ice crystals and another about agates. There is a guy in New Mexico who has in the past posted the most amazing bunch of pictures of cut and polished thunder eggs here on mindat, and I would love it if he would write an article about his collection of thunder eggs. He can call it thunder eggs if he wants, but he would be expected to make sure in the introduction that he says what it is mineralogically according to the IMA. Eventually the format of Best Minerals may change and each locality entry in each article may have associated with it a number of tags that will allow the Mindat user to search all of the best minerals articles and create the articles they want to learn about like pseudomorphs, copper minerals, japan law twins, amethyst, schalenblende, gem minerals, the minerals of Washington and so on. But right now we need to get the articles written, so we are not too particular about how they are classified. Would you care to pick a mineral and write about it and select the images for it from the mindat galleries? Your name in lights!! Its a great way to learn about the minerals you are interested in, especially when you have to scramble to answer the complaints others that you should have done this or that or tell them why you didn't include their favorite locality.

Most mineral specimens are not a single mineral and are labelled as the dominant (or most interesting) species - usually sphalerite with most of the Schalenblendes (but sometimes galena!). Most geologist would class all our rare species collections as mostly rocks, with a few grains of some rare minerals. You do get some complications with many gem minerals - eg chalcedony, largely really rocks with names based on coloring from trace inclusions (eg jaspers, chrysoprase). As long as quartz is dominant we can accept that species name.

I appreciate the work done on the "best minerals" project and will try to contribute more systematically when I have time. The reason for raising the issue of a systematic approach is of course that it may make it easier later on when the amount of data really accumulates. I have no problem with the interesting article about "schalenblende" and I think Harjo has made a tremendous job. But I still think it shoud be edited as a variety of Sphalerite or listed under that mineral. When somebody writes the article on "Sphalerite", it makes it much easier. If no rules are in place, I think there will be problems turning people away from contributing. You mention "Amethyst" as an example. A series of articles on Quartz has allready been started country by country. In my view, the different varieties of quartz should be treated under each country but in a way that allows selecting an overview of each of the defined varieties. Best minerals "Quartz" should have a short introduction defining the varieties that should be described under each country i.e. Quartz unspecified, smoky quartz, amethyst, citrine, agates, chalcedony and other cryptocrystalline quartz varieties - maybe even twinned quartz crystals and included quartz which is of interest to a lot of people. By selecting from this listing, one could choose only to read the entries for one or more subsections/varieties. I know it may seem a bit pedantic but I believe we should have the basic Mindat structure as a bais and respect the distinction between defined minerals, varieties and mixtures (i.e. rocks) - whatever peoples` interests might be and also whatever names and definitions are used in the trade or on e-bay. I have recently seen pink zoisite crystals from Merlani Hill sold as "pink Tanzanites". Would you treat these under a separate chapter of "Tanzanite" - or as a variety of Zoisite ( probably "thulite" would be more correct for the pink one ?) With a separate chapter on "Tanzanite" - would this variety be omitted in an article on "Zoisite" ? I think you will see the need for certain decisions on the structure of editing this work.Knut

Happy to contact you again after the holidays.Congratulations with your photo of the day, Harjo. Nice Schalenblende.With this message, I swing the article on again with a newly aquired specimen from Mezica.Here ite is :

I find that in writing these articles puts me in situations where I have to make choises all the time. What is a best specimen? For instance for allanite, does the 1 m long crude crystals from Kåbuland Iveland belong in a "best mineral" article? Yes, they are impressive, but would anyone really have a 1m long, black and heavy radioactive specimen in their collection? Where and how do you pull the line between micro and larger specimens? Will that be different for muscovite than for gadolinite to name two?

For beryl a brilliant article has been written for emerald which is a variety ( even my wife liked it), but for aeschynite one article covers two different mineral species. I find that not only OK, but as it should be, but what about zirkon and hafnon. If hafnon had been named zirkon-(Hf) would it then have been a part of the zirkon article rather than having its own? What about minerals like almandine that occurs in two different geological environments where the schist crystals on a general basis is a lot better than the ones found in pegmatites? Should the "lower quality" crystals from the pegmatites be included to show some of the diversity of locations and environments? Where do we draw the line between individual locations, and where do we group the locations? What about non-approved minerals like biotite? We all ( I guess) still have biotites in out collections, I don't even dare thinking on the amphibole group.

I think that Rock has been very correct in his pragmatic attitude towards the mineral content of the articles, and I think he is equally right in picking on the format. At some stage I would like to see the articles organized in accordance with one of the systems we have to organize minerals ( Hey, Strunz or Dana) and the different varieties placed under the relevant mineral, and that the individual articles organized like the wikipedia articles with the article and discussion placed under different tabs. I don't think we are there yet. At that time there should possibly be a "best of" group article as well, showing the best of each different mineral in the group and describe the relationship between the minerals in the group.

Maybe we will be able to follow Rock's timeline and be where we want to be in 2180?

One thing I would like to have a decision on now though is the priority between variety and country. For quartz, all macrocrystalline varieties ( amethyst, smokey quartz etc) have been prioritized lower than country, whereas for beryl, the variety emerald has been prioritized higher than the individual country. Either way works, but it should be consistent.

Well, the advantage of an alphabetical system is that it is fairly easy to find things. If you look at reference works that are organized by classification, the index is probably the most used section of the book. When articles are "finished", we do put a link to them from the mineral page. Of there are separate articles for varieties, it would be best to put links on the main article to these varietal pages.

In the tug of war between macro and micro specimens, generally if you have both, the macro will win unless the micros show some interesting feature that isn't available for macros.

One of the nice things abut this site is that you usually aren't tied to one way of doing things. With respect to beryl and emerald, it makes sense to isolate all of the emerald pictures in it's own section (aquas will probably have another section, but the rest of the varieties will probably just be included in beryl).

My reason for treating Schalenblende as a separate subject is that it is, at least on the continent, a very desired variety to collect in its own right, and has been as such since a very long time. As for Emerald being given an article of its own; If we would make only one article for all varieties of Beryl it would result in a huge article, so imho it would be better to treat the most prolific varieties like Emerald and Aquamarine in separate articles and link them to the main Beryl article. Some varietal names have been in use for so long (I believe that the name Smaragdus even preceded Berylle) and have become household names amongst collectors and the general public. And apart from that I think an article solely about Emeralds, Aquas or Amethyst just looks great I could imagine the same for the Quartz varieties like Rock Crystal, Amethyst, Smoky Quartz and for the microcrystaline varieties like Agate. The scope of these varieties is just too big to feature all together in a general article, at least that's what I think....I think the length of an article should stay within some boundaries (I think I reached the limits for the length of an article in the Millerite and Anatase articles), this would only be possible when it comes to for instance Beryl and Quartz when we either cut dramatically in the amount of specimens and localities featured (and many good specimens and localities would have to subside) or if we create separate articles for the varieties and link them to the major article. For other very prolific minerals like Fluorite or Calcite I think we should stick to the hierarchy by country. When I have time in a couple of weeks (I'm in a theatre tour at the moment and have to play every day...) I'll start with the Beryl article so I can show you what my intention is.

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